1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for aligning fish lying on their side and conveyed perpendicular to their longitudinal axis into the position required for decapitation having a brake shoe provided with a catching edge which slides on the fish body and means for displacing the fish in the direction of their tail end.
2. Description of Prior Art
DE-PS No. 2 619 217 discloses an apparatus in which the fish which are conveyed transverse to their longitudinal axis come into co-operating engagement with an aligning disc which displaces the fish in the direction of their tail portion by engaging their snout by means of sprung head pushers. A brake shoe is lowered in synchronism with the passage of the fish on to the latter so that the braking edge of the brake shoe rests upon the flank of the fish. During the course of the displacement by the head pushers the rear edge of the gill cover reaches the catching edge of the brake shoe so that the displacement movement of the fish is stopped. In the position thus reached the decapitation stroke is carried out.
With this device it is found that with this manner of alignment the desired position can hardly be achieved, at least not with the required exactness. The cause of this is that the pressure of the braking edge against the fish must on the one hand have such a value that the fish is pressed in behind the gill flap so that its rear edge runs securely against the brake shoe and on the other hand should be kept as low as possible since the displacement must occur under the action of this engaging force. If the engaging force of the braking edge against the fish is so set that the gill cover edge runs securely against the brake shoe then the displacing force must be correspondingly high. This entails, however, the danger that the gill cover is compressed or even torn so that a precise positioning is no longer possible. The consideration of these two opposing requirements is satisfactory when processing freshly caught fish, but when processing fish having a softer consistency it is observed that the rear edge of the collar bone or the point of connection of the breast fins function as an opposing edge. This has the consequence that the fish does not reach its optimum decapitation position and therefore the decapitation stroke occurs with an unacceptably high loss of valuable fish meat.